Densho Digital Archive - George Katagiri Interview (denshovh-kgeorge

<Begin Segment 9>

SG: What, were you still in touch with your girlfriend back in --

GK: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I was a good letter writer. We were sending letters back every day. So some days, I'd get four letters, and the next three days, I'd get none. And we eventually got married. But I kept up that correspondence.

SG: Was she Caucasian?

GK: No, no, no. I took her kid sister out in Tule Lake, so I have to say that I married Betty's older sister. [Laughs] But I was only in Japan for four months because I was really not needed. And so I came back, and now my continue, my story continues about this houseboy thing. I got back to Minneapolis, and I'm thinking, well, I'm going to re-enroll at the University of Minnesota. Where am I going to stay? So I'm at the YMCA. And I happened to know the name of the ironing lady that used to come to, the first place that I was a houseboy at, and her name was Mrs. Peterson. I said, "Mrs. Peterson, I'm back in town. Do you know if anyone who's looking for a houseboy?" And she says, by the way, she says, "Yes." She says, "I just happened to know that there's a doctor who's looking for a houseboy." I says, "Oh, could I have his name and his address and phone number?" And so I called him from the YMCA. And I said, "Well, Doctor Ward, I understand you're looking for a houseboy, and I'm so and so." And he said, "Where are you?" And I said, "Oh, I'm at the YMCA." He said, "I'll be there in twenty minutes." I thought, wow, boy, this was easy. So he comes driving up in twenty minutes. And with my one little duffle bag, I'm in his car, and we go out to his nice home way out at the outskirts of Minneapolis. And as we go in the kitchen, there's a man in there. And he says to the man, "Okay. You can leave now." And I thought to myself, "What's going on?" And the man didn't argue or anything. I think he was happy to leave. [Laughs] But it took him about three minutes to grab his clothes and his bag, and he was out of there. And the minute he stepped out of the kitchen door, Doctor Ward went up to the silver chest and counted the silver. And I thought to myself, "What am I getting into?" you know. We haven't even talked about what I'm supposed to do. Well, okay. Evidently, he was unhappy with the guy that was there, so he hired me without any interview or anything.

And so I moved in, and I learned that I had to do all the cooking now, cooking, all the cleaning, all the yard work, and I had to wash the car every morning. And he was a doctor; he wanted a clean car. This is in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And he said, "The only time you don't have to wash the car is when the sponge freezes to the car." Then I didn't have to wash it. Well, that's a nice break. But it was the cooking part that stymied me. I told him, "Well, I've never cooked in my life." He says, "Don't worry about it," you know. And so there I was, studying chemistry for one hour and studying how to cook for three hours. But, and this was in September. Here comes October and November, and I thought, well, Thanksgiving, he's a bachelor doctor, kind of prominent doctor and surely somebody will invite him out for Thanksgiving. And he comes home, and he says, "George, I've invited a family of five for Thanksgiving dinner." And I said, "Oh." [Laughs] And so there I was studying for weeks before Thanksgiving how to roast a turkey and how to bake a pie and all this stuff. The Thanksgiving comes and I bake this turkey and I bake this turkey and I bake this turkey, and by gosh, this turkey is going to be cooked, you know. So I cooked it and I cooked it, and finally one leg's dropped. I thought to myself, "This turkey is done." And as it turned out, a well done turkey tastes about as good as a medium done turkey. And it turned out all right, you know. The pie was a little uneven. The crust was, part of the crust was thicker than the other part. But okay, I survived. And then here comes, then here comes January. And Doctor Ward said, "Well, every year in January, I go to Arizona to a dude ranch for a full month." And I was, to myself, I was just, elated, whoopee. Boy, I'm going to get rid of this guy for a full month. So come January, he takes off. He's gone for a full month. And he comes back, and the first thing he does is look through the grocery list. And he says, "George, you didn't eat this last month." And I says, "Well, I was by myself, and there's no point in doing a lot of cooking." What he didn't know I was eating all the frozen filet mignons that were in the freezer. So I lived on filet mignons, steaks for a month, and I survived quite well, you know. But, it was not an enjoyable experience. I hated just about every minute of it, but he paid well. On top of my GI Bill, he paid an additional, I think, fifty dollars a month, and that's what I was getting from the GI Bill and get my room and board. So financially, I was doing quite well.